Windows 10 for free, there has to be a snag??

[wiskerke]

Godwin’s Law is an internet adage that is derived from one of the earliest bits of Usenet wisdoms, which goes “if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you’ve automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in.”

 

Not really. it stipulates merely that if a discussion (on the internet or more likely in the time he -may have- formulated it, on usenet)  goes on long enough, the likelihood of someone mentioning or comparing something or someone to Hitler or the Nazis increases until it is almost inevitable. It now usually serves as a way to denounce an opponent, defusing his or her arguments.

Here's a Godwin's Law FAQ , a quite interesting read for a Winter's Night ;-)

 

wim

[MDM]

On the subject of Hitler, there is a fascinating series of programmes available at the moment on the BBC iPlayer called "The World's Most Photographed" - originally aired in 2005. There is one about Hitler and how he used photography as a propaganda tool - it is absolutely chilling but definitely worth watching. Others in the series still available include JFK, Mahatma Gandhi, James Dean and Audrey Hepburn. Well worth watching.

[M.Chapman]

 

Just updated my daughters windows 7 with 10. Many parts mainly Office will now not work save etc. Going for a system restore. However updated my windows 8 to 10 without problem. Think twice about doing it for windows 7 though !

 

It really does seem that the issues are from those updating from Windows 7. As John mentioned, perhaps some of the older PCs don't work well with Windows 10.

 

Jill

 

 

The PC I'm having the most trouble with has a clean install of Windows 10. It is an older PC however. 

[M.Chapman]

 

Just as a heads-up, I had to have some work done on my five-year-old PC recently, and my very experienced repair guy told me that he doesn't recommend upgrading to Windows 10 if you have an older machine. He didn't get into specifics but said that there are "issues." Looks like I'll be stickin' with lucky Windows 7.

How can you do that, John? I thought this thread says you have no choice, the update takes over your computer.

 

It's still possible to avoid by being very careful how you respond to the pop-up prompts. Alternatively, turn off all updates.

 

My main PC is now a Mac running El Capitan with a "frozen" Windows 7 SP1 running as a virtual machine with Windows updates turned off, and internet access (for Wiindows) disabled. Now I've got the best of both worlds. Mac OS X for most stuff, and a stable version of Windows 7 for when I still have to run Windows. I can highly recommend Parallels software for this.

[Betty LaRue]

 

 

Just as a heads-up, I had to have some work done on my five-year-old PC recently, and my very experienced repair guy told me that he doesn't recommend upgrading to Windows 10 if you have an older machine. He didn't get into specifics but said that there are "issues." Looks like I'll be stickin' with lucky Windows 7.

 

How can you do that, John? I thought this thread says you have no choice, the update takes over your computer.

It's still possible to avoid by being very careful how you respond to the pop-up prompts. Alternatively, turn off all updates.

 

My main PC is now a Mac running El Capitan with a "frozen" Windows 7 SP1 running as a virtual machine with Windows updates turned off, and internet access (for Wiindows) disabled. Now I've got the best of both worlds. Mac OS X for most stuff, and a stable version of Windows 7 for when I still have to run Windows. I can highly recommend Parallels software for this.

I bought Windows and Parallels when I bought my first iMac. I had some software that didn't work on the Mac, and thought I couldn't do without. One of those was Noise Ninja.

But I soon found out that PS noise reduction worked better with each version. I also used Wondows to save documents with a .doc extension. Then I found out there is a way to do that with the Mac, too.

When I bought a new Mac 5 years later, I gave up Windows.

I think getting it for the Mac initially was a fear factor when it came to adding Windows. I'd always used PCs and was afraid of the transition.

I get by fine without it.

[M.Chapman]

 

 

My main PC is now a Mac running El Capitan with a "frozen" Windows 7 SP1 running as a virtual machine with Windows updates turned off, and internet access (for Wiindows) disabled. Now I've got the best of both worlds. Mac OS X for most stuff, and a stable version of Windows 7 for when I still have to run Windows. I can highly recommend Parallels software for this.

I bought Windows and Parallels when I bought my first iMac. I had some software that didn't work on the Mac, and thought I couldn't do without. One of those was Noise Ninja.

But I soon found out that PS noise reduction worked better with each version. I also used Wondows to save documents with a .doc extension. Then I found out there is a way to do that with the Mac, too.

When I bought a new Mac 5 years later, I gave up Windows.

I think getting it for the Mac initially was a fear factor when it came to adding Windows. I'd always used PCs and was afraid of the transition.

I get by fine without it.

 

 

Similar case here. I'd never used a Mac before, so having access to my familiar Windows programs has eased the transition. I had hoped to swap entirely OS-X and never use Windows again, but I've found that the only way I can operate some of my engineering consultancy spreadsheets (containing VBA and ActiveX) is to run MS Office 2010 in a Windows environment. I tried Libre and Open Office, MS Office 2010 for Mac, as well as OS X Numbers. None of them will work with these spreadsheets. So I was either faced with a major amount of reprogramming in VBA, or finding an alternative solution. MS Office 2010 running in a Windows 7 Virtual Machine using Parallels on my Mac allows me to use the spreadsheets without modification.

 

I've converted to Mac versions of PS and LR, but am still looking for an image browser that allows fast side by side image comparison at 100% without having to import the images. BreezeBrowser for Windows is unfortunately still my only solution for this. Although I'm watching Acdsee with interest. The Windows version is now very close to being able to replace BB, LR and PS in my workflow. Unfortunately the Mac version of Acdsee has somewhat less functionality at the moment, but I'm sure that will change.

[M.Chapman]

More stuff I didn't know Windows 10 was doing...

 

Water cooler El Reg, some friends of mine have been showing me blog posts about Microsoft keeping secret copies of all our encryption keys. What's going on?

Since Windows 8, Microsoft has built drive encryption into its operating system, so none of this should really be a shock. And this encryption feature shouldn't be confused with Bitlocker, which is aimed at power users and businesses; think of this feature as a diet Bitlocker.

Whenever you first log into a new Windows 10 computer or device using a Microsoft account, the OS quietly and automatically encrypts the internal storage drive, and uploads a recovery key to Redmond's OneDrive servers. While you're logged into your machine, your data is decrypted and accessible. If someone steals your PC or tablet, and they don't know your password, they shouldn't be able to get at your files because they can't decrypt them.

 

Full article here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/30/microsoft_hard_drive_encryption_keys/

 

What makes Microsoft think they have the right to encrypt my data and files, without my permission, and store the password on their servers? I've always used full disk encryption to protect my files, but have chosen a multi-platform solution (Truecrypt/Vercrypt) which is under my control, so disks can be decrypted on any computer running Windows, OS X, or Linux. 

[John Walker]

I've upgrade two PCs from Win7 to Win10 with no issues whatsoever.  One was an eight year old machine which only just covered minimum requirements for Win10.

 

They have both been running since the start of Win10 and all programs including Office 2003 are fine.

 

Other machines upgraded are from Win8 and one a clean install of Win10 to a new hi-spec machine.

 

I don't know why some users are experiencing problems?  I have a reasonable knowledge of PCs but am nowhere near being classed an expert.

 

I hope those of you with problems have them resolved soon.

 

John

[spacecadet]

I think I'll stick to my policy of why as opposed to why not.

[Bryan]

Win10 running fine for me now.

 

No problems with Chrome after earlier hangups.

 

The keyboard lock up bug after sleep seems to be sorted, and I have the screen configured to look like Win 7 without any of the unwanted Win10 paraphernalia. I do have Windows Control Panel as one of my quick start apps available to quell any new silliness that MS might send my way, or to re-install hardware/software that Win10 takes exception to.

 

In fairness to Mr Microsoft, one of their support staff communicated with me when I posted a question, and their suggestions may have fixed the keyboard issue.

 

My only remaining regret is the lack of full functionality of Windows Photo viewer, but a kind forum member drew my attention to FastStone Image Viewer and that's kicked the problem into touch.

 

However, other than that I now have a new supported operating system for free, I am not seeing any particular advantages, other than possibly a more speedy start up.

[M.Chapman]

More Windows 10 Gremlins? See other Alamy forum thread here.

[ChrisC]

 

 

After a couple of months using Windows 10, I'm probably going to revert back to Windows 7 too. There's just too many things that don't work properly in Windows 10 for me.

1. Intermittent failure to boot (thread stuck in driver)
2. Serious lags in file Explorer (moved or deleted files don't always show as moved or deleted unless I close and reopen file Explorer)
3. Slower than Windows 7
4. Significant increase in Internet bandwidth usage. Before Windows 10 I was always under 10 GB/month. Since upgrading I've been close to double that each month. This is partly down to the repeated Windows 10 has made to install the huge "November update", which has failed every time so far. But I'm not sure what else is causing the significant increase in my downloads. Unfortunately I have a 10GB monthly cap, and have to pay for usage over this. So for me the Windows 10 update has not been free..
5. I've recently found that my HP all in one Printer/Scanner (only 2 years old) will no longer scan under Windows 10. It has the latest driver. Printing also freezes part way through documents for no obvious reason. I didn't have any of these problems under Windows 7. The Windows 10 "devices" interface is also much worse.
6. I dislike the inconsistent user interface. In some areas the menus and fonts are big "dumbed down" and bold, presumably to suit a touch interface. But, as a result, menus don't fit on the screen, and have to scrolled unnecessarily, and have useful options missing.  In other areas the menus reverts to the old "Windows 7" style with smaller font and closer spaced format.
7. I hate the forced updates. When I come to shut down my PC (the only way for a secure shut down) it's a real pain to find Windows 10 has other plans, and starts installing an update and tells me not to turn off the PC.

All in all, I wish I hadn't upgraded to Windows 10. To revert to Windows 7 I'll probably have to go through an awkward reactivation of Windows 7, now the 30 days are up, as I suspect my original Windows 7 licence key has been deactivated. Windows 10 is loads better than Windows 8, but still isn't as polished as Windows 7.

 

The bandwidth problem is well documented: to speed delivery up, Microsoft uses some of your bandwidth to send the updates or the whole product to other clients. Like BitTorrent.

From Wikipedia:

Windows Update also uses a peer to peer system for distributing updates; by default, users' bandwidth is used to distribute previously downloaded updates to other users, in combination with Microsoft servers. Users can instead choose to only use peer-to-peer updates within their local area network.

This is the link from that Wikipedia article on how to disable that.

(Sorry for that broadcast starting automatically - re: your bantwidth.)

 

wim

 

 

Already disabled that when I installed Windows 10, and I've just checked it's still turned off. I also turned off automatic sharing of my Wi-Fi access with people in my contacts folder. It's downloads to my house that have shot up,

 

You have to turn OFF "automatic sharing of my wifi access with people in my contacts folder!!!!" That's ridiculous in the extreme!

[ChrisC]

Just looked back on this thread, after about six months, to see what the latest is.....the latest is, as someone said back in September, I think...I need to catch up on my whiskey drinking!

 

Even though my Windows is slowing down, (probably withe the updates) I can't see how 10 can be trusted not to screw something up, or give me a few days headaches, but for what, there seems to be no improvement or anything to make me want to upload 10?

[davidl]

Just looked back on this thread, after about six months, to see what the latest is.....the latest is, as someone said back in September, I think...I need to catch up on my whiskey drinking!

Re your catching up. I recently bought a bottle of Dawhinnie Winter's Gold which was on offer at Waitrose and Morrison's for £25 reduced from around £40

I'm presuming your a single malt man and if you, like me, aren't in favour of "Peaty" whiskey's it's worth a try.

[Paulw]

I’m ambivalent toward all operating systems, this comes as a result of working with most of them for years.

 

The things that have vexed me about Widows 10 are; MS trying to foist it on me by fair means or foul, the amount of commercially useful information about me that they want sent to them via the default OS settings and the so far undeclared intent for an ‘adobe like’ charging model for various aspects of the OS further down the line.

 

Anyway, I digress, those folks who want to avoid the ‘upgrade’ to Windows 10 may want to take a look at this article from The Register that highlights the official Microsoft KB document to prevent the upgrade and irritating pop-ups.  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/08/windows_10_upgrade_blocker/

 

Paul

[M.Chapman]

I’m ambivalent toward all operating systems, this comes as a result of working with most of them for years.

 

The things that have vexed me about Widows 10 are; MS trying to foist it on me by fair means or foul, the amount of commercially useful information about me that they want sent to them via the default OS settings and the so far undeclared intent for an ‘adobe like’ charging model for various aspects of the OS further down the line.

 

Anyway, I digress, those folks who want to avoid the ‘upgrade’ to Windows 10 may want to take a look at this article from The Register that highlights the official Microsoft KB document to prevent the upgrade and irritating pop-ups.  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/08/windows_10_upgrade_blocker/

 

Paul

 

Thanks for the link.

[John Mitchell]

 

I’m ambivalent toward all operating systems, this comes as a result of working with most of them for years.

 

The things that have vexed me about Widows 10 are; MS trying to foist it on me by fair means or foul, the amount of commercially useful information about me that they want sent to them via the default OS settings and the so far undeclared intent for an ‘adobe like’ charging model for various aspects of the OS further down the line.

 

Anyway, I digress, those folks who want to avoid the ‘upgrade’ to Windows 10 may want to take a look at this article from The Register that highlights the official Microsoft KB document to prevent the upgrade and irritating pop-ups.  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/08/windows_10_upgrade_blocker/

 

Paul

 

Thanks for the link.

 

 

Yes, Thanks. The nagging seems less frequent than it was, but this is useful info for semi-Luddites like me. My motto when it comes to technology in general is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[Gurcharan]

I got Windows 10 few months back, upgrade from my Windows 8, somewhere in between I started using Chromium browser, I don't know how and when it got installed on my machine (Lenovo). I preferred it to Chrome being lighter and faster, till I started my first (sample) upload on Alamy. I would receive message to install latest version of Flash player, I installed it but no success, I gave a second try but no success. It was then that I learnt (from web search)  Chromium does not have inbuilt system of updates. I shifted back to Chrome and every thing went fine.   

[M.Chapman]

I've now moved away from Windows 10 altogether following ongoing problems. The latest problem I ran into was the MS Windows 10 update function became more unreliable. The system would alert me that updates were required, download them, but then some would fail to install. The PC would then (incorrectly?) report it was fully up to date.  The File Explorer also seemed to be unreliable at detecting plugged in drives and at copying files, also kept getting multiple instances of My Documents folders appearing in the Navigation pane. By the end I'd lost all confidence in MS and Windows 10.

 

For my PC (as stated before) I've swapped to a Mac and run most stuff under OS-X, and only use Windows 7 for some legacy stuff using Parallels (an excellent piece of Software).

 

We can't afford to swap entirely to Macs, so for the other 2 family PCs I look after, I wiped Windows 10 and did a clean install of Windows 7 SP1 (I was glad to find the original Windows 7 product keys still work, even after these installations were upgraded to Windows 10). I disabled all Windows updates. The email and web browser are set to run in a Sandbox (Sandboxie) and, for good measure, I installed a Virus checker/security suite. My logic being that the only way malware or viruses can attack is via the Internet or USB stick. USB sticks are scanned on connection, as are any downloaded files which are also confined to the Sandbox. PCs are also invisible on the net (checked with shields up) to avoid direct attack. Hopefully that covers everything and avoids the need for a constant stream of defective updates from MS, and they can't keep nagging me to update to Windows 10.

 

I'd forgotten just how fast and slick Windows 7 SP1 was before all the updates slowed it down. Both PCs run really smoothly, one of them even cold boots in just 17 seconds.

 

I'm hopefully looking forward to a more stable OS with far less time wasted on OS problems.

[Johnnie5]

It seems that Microsoft is going to be more aggressive about installing Windows 10 on everyone's computers from now on.  It seems a little heavy handed on their part.    Here is the article  

[spacecadet]

Good job I have updates turned off, then.

[M.Chapman]

It seems that Microsoft is going to be more aggressive about installing Windows 10 on everyone's computers from now on.  It seems a little heavy handed on their part.    Here is the article  

 

Thanks for posting the link - good article with lot of interesting comments added further down the page.

 

Although the article says you have 31 days to downgrade back to Windows 7, I've found my old Windows 7 product keys are still working long after I upgraded to Windows 10.

 

So, in my case, it was  possible to downgrade after the 31 days are up, but it's not as easily as it requires a complete reinstall of Windows 7.

[Trevor Chriss]

So this morning (early) I turned on my computer and went away to make a pot of coffee, very slow computer, the hamsters resist turning the wheel early mornings, especially Sunday's.

Upon my return there was a box saying that Windows 10 would start to upgrade in a number of minutes, something that as been occurring in the past week or two. As usual I dismissed it and began uploading images to LR and researching the internet.

Suddenly everything closed down and eventually a message came up that Windows was upgrading. Long story short I am now the (proud?!) owner of Windows 10, something I have been avoiding for all this time, I am 68 and  avoid change if at all possible.

My point is not only I have I been harassed since 10 came out, now I have it regardless whether I want or need it. It remains to be seen if it creates any problems, I know some people have had difficulties and some have not. 

But regardless of the advantages it should be my choice, not some conglomerate intent on ruling the world.

[Bryan]

Lately Chrome has started to hang up under Win 10. It was working perfectly until recently. Most annoying, sometimes it works and other times it does not. It's now easier to read the paper on my Nexus tablet than on the big screen connected to the box.

 

I am also getting messages about Flash not working, possibly the two are connected?  

 

There was a recent "upgrade" to Java, I wonder if that is the culprit?

[Bryan]

Tried uninstalling and re-installing Chrome, to no avail, still hanging up. Have resorted to using IE, and might even be tempted to flirt with the dark side and use Edge.